In Conversation: Gabrielle Civil and Amanda Hunt at Art + Practice LA

Gabrielle Civil, “Fugue (Dissolution, Accra),” 2013. Yari Yari Ntoaso, Organization of Women Writers of Africa Symposium. Accra, Ghana. Photo by Fungai Machirori. | Image from Art + Practice via Facebook.

A public program at Art + Practice (A+P) in Los Angeles tonight (Wednesday, Aug. 22) features black feminist performance artist and writer Gabrielle Civil, who begins teaching MFA Creative Writing courses and BFA Critical Studies courses at CalArts’ School of Critical Studies this fall.

Civil will be joined by Amanda Hunt, curator and Director of Education and Public Programs at Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA). Civil and Hunt will discuss each other’s work, the legacy of African-American visual artist Senga Nengudi, and the urgency of black women’s performance. Their conversation reflects their interest in examining how embodied gesture can question and answer identity/politics, as well as the ways in which black women’s performance can be liberating and transformative.

Civil, who hails from Detroit, Mich., has traveled the world performing 50 original works, including a year-long investigation of practice as a Fulbright Fellow in Mexico, and a trilogy of diaspora grief works after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Her art writing has been published by The Third Rail, Art21, Small Axe and Obsidian. Swallow the Fish, Civil’s memoir in performance art, was named by Entropy a “Best Non-Fiction Book of 2017.” Her forthcoming book, Experiments in Joy, engages race, performance and collaboration.

A+P is a nonprofit foundation conceived and founded by artist and CalArts alum Mark Bradford (Art BFA 95, MFA 97), philanthropist and collector Eileen Harris Norton and social activist Allan DiCastro. Designed as a multifunctional community art space in Leimert Park, Los Angeles, A+P focuses on supporting the needs of local foster youth.